


dignity

by starlight_sugar



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9684866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: “Oh, Tea,” she says, “don’t you know that you’re a Silverview?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work by a fan for fans, not affiliated with MaxFun or the McElroys.  
> Canon notes: pre-canon, but alludes to events in the second Hogsbottom Three ep.  
> Content warnings: brief allusion to an OC dying unexpectedly.  
> 

Teana first notices it when she’s seven. She doesn’t leave the mansion often, but Mother gave her permission to go into town, just this once. She’s supposed to try shopping for food and see how she likes it. She’s not sure what to expect, but her handmaid Ismene takes her out to the market to see all the other people.

And the people turn away from them.

Teana thinks she’s imagining it the first time, and the second, but by the dozenth time mothers usher their children away, she asks Ismene about it.

Ismene just laughs, ignoring the way it makes Teana scowl at her. “Oh, Tea,” she says, “don’t you know that you’re a Silverview?”

Teana glares. “I know my name, Ismene.”

“Of course you do, kopela.” Ismene pats the top of Teana’s head. “And because of that name you walk with your head held high, Tea. Always.”

It’s one of Ismene’s favorite things to say, as if Teana doesn’t know enough about posture. “But what does my name have to do with why people won’t look at me?”

“You’re young yet. You may know your name, but you don’t know yet what it means.”

“It means we view silver,” Teana says. She knows that. Even Tanzer knows it, and he’s only four. “But Ismene, why does viewing silver mean people don’t want to be near me?”

Instead of answering, Ismene hums something tuneless as she ambles towards the next stand in the market. The man there is selling vegetables; there are heads of lettuce bigger than Teana’s own head. She’s so busy staring at the lettuce she almost doesn’t see the seller staring at her.

“Two pounds of carrots, please,” Ismene says peacefully. She’s the most graceful person Teana knows, more than Mother, more than any of the people who visit them. Mother screams when she gets angry, and Father goes all cold and mean, but Ismene never does either. Ismene is calm as a lake, always smiling. She has to be sad sometimes - Teana knows she does, everybody gets sad sometimes - but nobody ever knows when Ismene is. She’s Teana’s favorite of all their maids.

“Ismene,” she says plaintively, “why?”

Ismene pays for the carrots and starts down the street, back down the path towards the mansion. “Because, kopela,” she says, “it means you have power. And people are afraid of power.”

“But what if I don’t want them to be afraid?”

“Then you prove to them that they shouldn’t be.” Ismene starts humming again, but this time it’s a song, one that Teana recognizes and can’t help but hum along with. She hums, and she almost doesn’t notice that people still scurry out of the way when they walk down the street.

#

Ismene dies just before Teana turns eleven. It’s almost overnight, how fast she gets sick, how fast she’s gone.

Teana cries, oh, she cries in her bedroom for days, but nobody sees her. Nobody even hears her. She does not cry at Ismene’s funeral, or when Mother picks her a new handmaid. She never cries when anyone can see her. She just holds her head high and smiles when she can. It’s what Ismene would do.

The people at the funeral look at her clear eyes and dry cheeks and turn away, one by one. She understands why Ismene said people were afraid of her. She still does not cry. These people don’t get to see what she’s feeling.

#

“Do you ever wish we weren’t who we were?” Tanzer asks one day.

Teana wrinkles her nose at him. “Don’t you want to take over the business one day?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Don’t you like being rich?”

“Teana!” Tanzer crosses his arms, and Teana has to try not to smirk at the brat. “This is a serious question.”

And, well, Teana isn’t a great sister, but she gives the question due thought anyways, because it’s interesting. “I don’t,” she answers, “because I like it when heads turn when I walk into a room.”

“You don’t think heads would turn without the family name?”

“I think the family name makes it easier.”

“What do you have outside the family name?”

There’s an easy answer to that: the jewelry box under Teana’s bed. There are pearls and diamonds that she accidentally knocked off of shelves into her waiting purse, taken from friends and maids, just to see if she could. Teana Silverview, young lady of the house, is a thief before she is a Silverview. She prefers it that way, too.

But Tanzer wouldn’t understand that, so she just sniffs at him. “What do you have?”

“Nothing now, but I’m going to be a hero,” Tanzer announces, in all of his thirteen-year-old gravitas.

Teana can’t help but roll her eyes. “Really, Tanzer? What kind of a hero will you be?”

“I’ll be the best hero you’re ever going to see.”

“Who says I’ll be watching you?”

Tanzer glowers at her. “I’m gonna be better than you, just wait.”

Teana thinks that he already is, morally speaking, but she’d never say so. Besides, she knows that she has more power than him, that she relishes making people look away when it makes him uncomfortable. Doesn’t that mean she’s already won?

#

And then Teana goes to Goldcliff. It’s for nothing, really, just a weekend trip to make a social appearance and smile and maybe steal some earrings, if she’s feeling up to it. Except-

“Silverview,” she says, for about the hundredth time. Her voice is getting shrill and sharp, even though she’s sure her smile is as flat as ever. “You know, we view silver?”

Whoever it is she’s talking to, gods, she doesn’t even know, but he smiles in the most patronizingly, aggravatingly polite way possible. “I’m sorry, I must not have made it to where you’re from.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Teana says, and she has to bite her cheek to keep herself from _screaming._ She holds her head high and tries to keep her breathing even. “Maybe once you travel a little more, you’ll get to know my family.”

“Maybe I will,” he says, still polite, but his eyes travel down to Teana’s… side? “Although if your family name matches your jewelry, I may have to get to know you after all.”

Teana lifts her hand to examine the bracelet, something she’d slipped on without a second thought. It’s silver and diamond, with most of the gems tinted different colors. It’s one of her only accessories that she got from Mother, rather than from someone’s jewelry box or from a suitor. It’s beautiful, and the man in front of her can’t take his eyes off of it.

“What, this?” she says, with a healthy dose of false surprise. “Typical Silverview jewelry. It’s nothing special.”

“Well, if that’s nothing special, then your family must be very special indeed.” The man reaches out and takes Teana’s ham. She lets him lift it, brush a kiss against her fingers. “Welcome to Goldcliff, my lady.”

Teana realizes, in the span of time it takes him to kiss her hand, that Ismene was wrong. People never stared or ran because she was a Silverview - at least, not directly. They stared because Silverviews had money, and money is power. She has power. And she can get more power.

“I like it here already,” she says, and means it, viciously, truly.

#

She takes. She steals, never goes out of her way but always finds a way to do it anyways. She escalates past jewelry, past dining sets, until she could sell everything she owns and end with a quarter of the fortune that being a Silverview brings her.

Tanzer catches her at it once, about a decade after his empty promise to become a hero. He doesn’t say anything when she does it at a party, but on the carriage ride home he rifles through her purse without a word. There are pocket-watches, candlesticks, wallets, necklaces, spoons - enough that she knows her massive purse is heavier than it has any right to be, but she kept taking things anyways.

“Why?” Tanzer asks, letting a gold chain slip between his fingers.

“Because I wanted it,” Teana answers honestly.

“Don’t you have enough?”

“This is mine because I wanted it, not because it was given to me.”

“But it was someone else’s.”

Teana waves a hand, bangles clattering together. Tanzer stares, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Little brother, take my word for it. Being a Silverview doesn’t mean that much outside the city, but everything in that purse means something no matter where you go.”

“Including spoons?”

“You can sell spoons.”

Tanzer looks back at the purse. “You don’t need any of this.”

“And you don’t need a dozen silk suits.” Teana frowns. “Why are you fighting me on this, Tanzer? Being a Silverview means having power.”

“Power doesn’t mean stealing.”

“Then what does it mean? What are you doing with your power?”

Tanzer hands her purse back wordlessly. Teana accepts it, settling it back on her lap, listening to the metal clang inside.

Two weeks later, Tanzer tells Mother and Father that he’s going to be an adventurer and leaves home. Teana ransacks his room as soon as he’s gone. It’s not like he’s going to need jeweled cufflinks when he’s fighting trolls.

#

Teana is away from home when the allegations about the Silverviews come out, and she stays away. Out in Goldcliff and the Shatterpeak, in the far reaches, they’ve finally learned who the Silverviews used to be. She’s not about to lose that respect to who they are now.

But it won’t last. She knows it won’t. And she’ll need something to her name when her name doesn’t matter anymore.

#

“Tanzer, let me level with you.” Teana’s arm is still looped through her brother’s. He wasn’t supposed to be here tonight, when Teana ensured that she’d be rich enough to last the rest of her life, but he’s here. And he doesn’t look surprised, not really. He knows.

She leans up to whisper in her ear, lowers her voice, smiles like she knows something. That’s what power looks like. After tonight, she’ll have power for the rest of her life.

Teana keeps her head high. “I’m going to rob this woman blind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ismene's nickname for Teana, "kopela," is a Greek endearment meaning "my girl."
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you like Teana and/or this fic you're welcome to say hi on Twitter @jazfiute or on Tumblr @pervincetosscobble.


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